J.P. Morgan: Here Are 3 Stocks That Will Benefit From Blockchain

Blockchain is hot, but if you are a mainstream investor the technology may not be easy for you to understand or invest in. In a recent note, a J.P. Morgan analyst provided investors with three nonblockchain public companies that he expects will benefit from blockchain.

“Investors should be looking to identify where the opportunity to replace a middleman is the biggest, or where trust is needed where none exists, or what companies are the best positioned to offer blockchain as a service,” J.P. Morgan software equity research analyst Sterling Auty advised in his note.

Those companies, he said, are “middleman displacement opportunities” and “blockchain as a service” firms: cloud service provider Akamai; DocuSign, which offers the ability to connect a blockchain network to its systems; and Ellie Mae, which manages real estate mortgages using blockchain.

The analyst rates Akamai and DocuSign as “overweight” and Ellie Mae as “underweight,” CNBCreported.

“Rather than building from scratch we see customers looking to utilize a vendor like Akamai that offers its blockchain capabilities as a service,” Auty said. “While there are a number of companies that have blockchain technology, IBM as one example, we believe the sizable Akamai network is an inherent advantage in running a distributed ledger in blockchain.”